I've read several posts about the thermal paste under the ICM drying out with age, so I pulled mine off today, and sure enough there wasn't much of anything left to clean off. Anyways, mine says 'GP Sorensen - Made in Japan' on it? Would that be the original or a replacement? It still works fine but I did clean the contact pins and put new thermal paste under it.

I know GM used some Japanese parts back then. My stock wheels say Japan on them as well.

 

GP Sorensen... that's aftermarket. I think Pep Boys used to sell those.

 

ok thanks. Probably replaced sometime back in the 90s. I bought the car in '08 and I've never replaced it.

 

Still readily available. A relatively reliable source for such things.

Of course, if the heat sink compound is no longer effective for whyever, it's DOOMED, whether OE or not. Not that it makes that much difference; OE ones fail and have to be replaced all the time. It's not like "OE" is some kind of guarantee that it's "good" or whatever.

 

I wonder how many of those failures are due to old dried out heat sink compound? It's obvious from looking at mine that it doesn't last the life of the module and must be renewed occasionally. I bought a small tube of Arctic MX-4 from Amazon for about $8.